Here is another awesome recipe from my friend Stephen Elliot.

The best part of fully engaging with another culture, while being fully from another culture is the weird combinations of the two you can come up with.

These mandu (very similar to Chinese dumplings, or pot stickers) are filled with a homemade macaroni and cheese with a slight sesame flavor to help match with the flavors of the dipping sauce. They do take a long time to prepare, but they also add a bit of a WOW factor to any potluck or gathering of friends on either side of the Pacific. Just make sure you give yourself a few hours to prepare, or you’ll run out of time and have to be the person who brings pizza to the potluck.

Macaroni and Cheese Mandu

Servings: 8 (recipe yields about 2 dozen dumplings)

Ingredients:

For the Mandu:

-1 cup macaroni noodles

-4 cups water

-1 tbls soy sauce

-1 tsp sesame seeds

-1 small tin Spam (optional, but adds to the fusion flare)

-3-5 slices processed cheese

-1 cup milk

-1 tbls flour

-1 tbls butter or margerine

For the Sauce:

-½ cup soy sauce

-1 tsp sesame oil

-¼ cup white sugar

-a pinch of sesame seeds

 Directions

1) Put the water into a large pot with a little bit of salt and set it to boil. When it has boiled, put the macaroni inside and boil it for 5-7 minutes, or until tender. The cook time will vary. If you’re unsure, taste a noodle and check to make sure it’s not crunchy. Drain the water and set aside.

2) In a saucepan, brown the spam in the butter, When it turns the desired color, add the flour and mix until it forms a paste. Quickly add the milk and cheese. Stir until the sauce is thick to your liking. Add the macaroni.

At this point, you have a delicious macaroni and cheese that tastes fine on its own. If you want to continue, however, mix in 1 Tbls soy sauce and the tsp sesame seeds, and get your mandu wrappers ready!

3) Spoon a small amount of mac and cheese onto each wrapper(see picture). Keep a bowl of water handy to dip your fingers in. with wet fingertips, trace a line around the outside of the wrapper. The water mixes with the dough in the wrapper to make a sort of paste. Fold it over like a taco and press to seal the mandu. Repeat until either your wrappers or macaroni are all used up.

4) You’ll need a steamer insert for this next part if you don’t have one, they are very cheap at most stores.

5) Place 3 or 4 dumplings in a large pot with a little bit of water in the bottom. Put as many as you can in the steamer basket without letting them touch. Boil the water on the bottom, and cover the top. Steam for 4-6 minutes.

6) Your dumplings can now be eaten, or you can brown them with a little oil to make them look like my picture

7) For the sauce, mix all the ingredients together under a medium heat, until it starts to boil. Refrigerate the sauce for at least 30 minutes before  serving for maximum flavor.

Below are the ingredients used in this recipe.  All can be found at Home Plus.  The mandu wrappers are in the freezer section.

Nutrition Information

For 1 Serving (3 mandu): 146 Calories, 7.6 g Fat, 3.9 g Saturated Fat, 22.0 mg Cholesterol, 442.8 mg Sodium,  13.1 g Carbohydrates, 0.4 g Fiber, 1.6 g sugar, 6.2 g Protein.

Filed under: Entrees, Snacks